if you look at ohio, if you look at wisconsin, if you look at nevada, if you look at iowa, the president has been consist eventually in the lead there. and romney basically has to run the table to even have a shot. >> but the republican argument, ari, which was the john kerry argument, which has always been the argument in these situations, is when the incumbent polls below 50, the incumbent is in danger no matter what the other number is. so if the incumbent is at 48, the challenger is at 46, the challenger is probably in a better position, most of the time. however, we're making new mathematical history in these campaigns all the time. and you can see that argument, because it's an old argument. it's been around a while. it didn't work for john kerry and it's hard to say what's going to happen now. >> yeah. i spent over a year working seven days a week for john kerry so i'm familiar with that argument, i remember that argument. i think the critical question then as now is whether the challenger is viewed to be credible by election day. if you look at polling of a generic republican ver